Christian seemed to think it over. “If you get up, it will make you a target. Look at some of these other idiots.” He motioned to the blue shirts on the jagged bank of the stream. Every so often one would hop up and run back for the trucks. They’d get shot at, and often struck, by the enemy shooters. “Besides, do you hear that?”
Ezra strained to listen. There was a guttural thumping sound on the wind, like…
Christian answered himself. “A helicopter is inbound. Do you think we would travel ten feet in this desolate country without air cover?”
He had to hand it to the TKM organization. They came to play.
The shooting continued for a few more seconds until those men down the creek realized an aircraft was lurking above. When the shooting stopped, Christian pointed. “There they are!” He looked down his rifle’s scope, carefully aiming at two men far down the waterway.
Ezra looked toward the men too, wishing there were some way he could help them. He quickly deduced, however, any assistance on his part would immediately be met with hostility, possibly death. He couldn’t fight his way out of the group of fifty men already wary about being picked off from afar, but he did have one card to play.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” he shouted at an obnoxious level of volume. Butch and Haley hopped off the ground, as he did, and they backtracked toward the truck.
Christian was startled. He looked up from his scope, then to Ezra. “Damn. You’re not military, are you?”
“No,” Ezra replied before Butch could answer. “Look, sorry about that. I hope you don’t go all Russian on me. We’re only dumb miners who hate getting shot at.” He was proud at how he’d distracted the man enough to stop him from shooting.
“Bah,” the man replied.
After their exchange, Christian again looked into the scope. “Crap. They’re going into some rocks. I’ll never pick them off at this range, but I don’t think they’ve got an ice cream cone’s chance in hell of escaping.”
A muted-green-colored military helicopter roared over their heads, going directly for the shooters downstream. Ezra rooted for them yet recognized there was no chance the men could get away. They did have some cover from ground-based shooters while among the rocks of the stream, but they had no protection from above. The rest of the land was so flat, they’d never be able to shield themselves from the aircraft. It was the reverse of what had been happening to Christian’s men.
The military chopper hovered for a few seconds, then the pair of guys clearly put up their hands in surrender. However, the person in the cargo area of the aircraft opened up on them with a machine gun. The incoming fire kicked up waterspouts as rounds fell around the two guys. The staccato rhythm of death drifted in on the wind a couple of seconds later.
“Turned ’em to paste,” Christian bragged.
“That was horrible,” Haley murmured.
The leader wasn’t the least disturbed by what happened. “Yeah. It was. Serves the bastards right.”
Christian finally got to his feet. He looked briefly at Ezra, then strode around to his driver’s door. Before he got in, he admired the helicopter looping wide around his convoy.
“This is nuts,” Haley said as she got next to him.
He nodded. “We only have to stay alive until we can get out of here.”
“I have an idea, E-Z,” Butch said, also sidling beside him.
“Whatchya got?” he drawled.
Butch spoke quietly. “When we get in the truck, but before he starts us moving, we off this Christian guy, then we drive this entire convoy into the opposite direction. Before they realize their leader is toast, we’ll peel off and leave them behind.”
He blinked with surprise. “This might be the greatest plan I ever heard…but there is a problem with it.”
“Yeah?” Butch challenged.
After establishing where the helicopter had gone, he motioned for Butch to look there. “No matter how brilliant the plan is, we won’t be able to outrun that thing. Once they know we’re killers, they’d be on us like stink on a diaper.” He shuddered thinking about the dumpster filled with diapers.
The big guy tried to rally. “There has to be somewhere we can hide. We can’t go with these maniacs into battle against people who are supposed to be our allies.”
Ezra sighed in despair. They’d been victims of circumstance since the sun came up. He was anxious to take his fate back into his own hands. But he was right about the helicopter.
It wasn’t yet time to fight back.
Chapter 12
Hwy 191, WY
Grace called her rangers together at the roundabout. A few of the men from the roadblock came over, too, though they stayed toward the rear. She figured there was still some mutual wariness after the shooting incident.
“Thanks for sticking around. I know you heard me explain the dangerous things I’ve seen over the past week, but I can tell by the looks on your faces you never believed all of them could be true.” She waited for acknowledgment. Candy smiled at her, lending support, so she could go on. “This roadblock sums up what we’re fighting against. TKM uses lies and deception to get what they want. The man who shot at us tricked the rest of these folks into guarding this highway. I’m sure we’ll find more like him when we go over the pass and into the next valley. The head guy himself is over there, no doubt planning a suitable reception for anyone who might call him out on his bullshit.”
Grace watched as determination built in the eyes of the rangers. If they hadn’t run away screaming at the sight and sounds of bullets whizzing by, she didn’t think some bad language would do it. However, she wanted to be brutally honest with them. “Beyond this point, if you follow me up and over the pass, each of your lives will be in danger. I can’t stress that enough.”
She imagined Randy in the back row, critiquing her every move. He would have been screaming at her to not endanger his workforce, especially off park property. Would insurance cover any injuries? Were they still technically rangers, or did Randy fire them as they drove away? Maybe the pink slip message was on her phone already.
Candy raised her hand.
“Yes?” Grace pointed to her.
“I believed every word of what you said back there. I mean, look at your truck. Those bullet holes didn’t magically appear there. I’m sure it’s going to be dangerous, and to be honest, I don’t really know much or care about TKM, but I do want to help you get free of them. It sounds like your boyfriend is the only one who believed in you, up until now.”
She shifted on her feet, uneasy at the term boyfriend. If they thought she was in this for the wrong reasons…
Candy pressed on. “You just tell us what you want us to do and give your best effort to keep us out of the path of those bullets, and I’ll follow you wherever.”
Many of the others expressed similar sentiments. A few shouted in support. Most pumped fists in righteous solidarity. One or two, however, made their excuses and walked away. It hurt a little to be abandoned, but she didn’t let it drag her down too far. Most of the rangers stayed. Rocky and Carson volunteered to join up as well, adding their personal trucks to her team.
“Let’s saddle up!” Grace was anxious to get all twelve vehicles on the road before Shawn reached TKM’s trap.
Once inside the truck and moving, she and Asher could finally speak privately. She went first. “I know what you’re going to ask. Can we trust him? The answer is no.”
“Who? The guy on the phone or the guy from the roadblock?”
She thought about it. “Both. We can’t trust anyone on the outside to do the right thing anymore. TKM can convince regular schmoes to do whatever they want. They seem to be controlling the flow of news.” To prove her point, she turned on the radio. There was the usual religious chatter on the AM dial and the low end of the FM scale, but there was almost nothing in the way of news. What little there was focused on the recovery efforts in other states. Nothing was said about Wyoming.
Asher li
stened to her scan stations for a short time before replying. “I assure you, I don’t trust anyone, but we have to go with what the guy said on the phone. If the Crow are on the move, it has to mean Shawn is with them. That’s where we need to be.”
“Are you getting a signal on your watch? We could use a detailed map of the area.”
He tapped his phone. “I don’t have a link, but I can pull up a map.” Asher was fond of his expensive techno-watch. After a few adjustments, he asked, “What do you need to know?”
“How far do we go on this route before we reach the pass? Rocky said it hits a high point, then goes down into the next valley. We—” She stopped midsentence as they came around a bend in the road. The green forest continued on both sides of the road, but it turned black about a quarter of a mile ahead. “Sheesh. We have to pay attention on this highway.”
Asher looked up the information. “We’re heading for a pass weirdly called The Rim. It’s about thirty miles from Hoback Junction to the top.”
“Thanks. It gives us a goal to shoot for.”
They went into a section of dense pine forest, though most of it had been stripped bare by the fire. The dead trees stood where they were, charred and looking like empty scarecrows. Some had fallen next to the highway, but few were tall enough to reach the shoulder.
“This is going to make a fascinating area to study someday,” he remarked. “Especially where the asteroid touched down and bounced. As a geologist, it will give me a lot of aspects of this disaster to examine.”
“As a park ranger, it will give me a lot of new material to work with, too. Assuming they don’t can me.” She laughed it off.
“I guarantee they won’t fire you. Not because of the truck, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No,” she replied. “I laugh at how simple it seems in retrospect. The worst they could do was fire me or dock my pay. But now…” she pointed behind them, “we have people willing to risk their lives for us.”
“Not only for us. They’re doing it for the same reason you are. There are people who need our help. TKM is a risk to humanity. They’re killing indiscriminately. That’s worth risking lives to stop. Plus, after your little pep talk, they all came willingly.”
“I guess that’s true,” she admitted.
The next fifteen minutes were like going on a tour through a spent blast furnace. Everything was blackened and charred, even the road itself. As they neared what looked like the highest point of the roadway, the tops of the trees were broken off. Many of the taller trunks had been tipped over, all pointing in the same direction.
“This is it,” she said, looking ahead and remembering the directions. “The Rim, as you called it.” The pass was barely more than a rise in the highway. Burned trees were everywhere. A large burn pile sat behind a gravel parking lot off to the left. A cheery metal sign hung above the ruins, declaring the wreckage a gift shop called Rim Station.
They drove a short way down the other side before arriving at a lot built for tourists. The stripped and broken trees gave them a view they wouldn’t have had otherwise. Two giant mountain ranges dominated the scenery ahead, one on each side, as if a giant were cradling the desolate, wide valley in its petrified arms. A junction a mile down the road had three different routes. The main highway continued south along the eastern range. A second paved road went to the southwest, near the base of the western mountains. A gravel road also went straight out into the middle of the valley.
There wasn’t a tree to be seen beyond the patch near the lot. Some of the land was burned. Some was torn to shreds, suggesting the rock did, in fact, bounce through. The line of destruction pointed to the south, close to the gravel road, about midway between the two ranges.
“Rocky was right,” she announced.
“What?”
“There are no TKM men around here. They must all be guarding their expensive asteroid down there.” She pointed to the bare lands ahead, well beyond the three-way road junction.
“Right where we’re going,” he sighed.
Anticline Natural Gas Field, WY
The next hour reinforced Ezra’s belief they had to escape from TKM. Christian drove the convoy to the soda ash plant and guided them to a modified shipping container sitting in the open. Even without being told, it was obvious to him what they’d been brought there to do.
Christian pointed to a puke-green container. “You three can have this one.”
Ezra didn’t move. “You want us to stand in there? It’s going to be hotter than hell.” The sun was out in full force and it was already past noon. The metal shipping container looked like an invitation for Hansel and Gretel to climb in the oven.
The leader was unmoved. “I’ve got fifty other guys to deal with. You all get loaded in there for your own protection. There’s a bucket for squatting on. A five-gallon water jug for drinking. You can step out to get cool, but be ready when the shooting starts. Close the doors. Stand at your gun slot. All right?”
The man wasn’t really asking. They had no choice in the matter. It was like the Russian had said: get in or be shot in the back for running away.
Christian guided the others to the nearby boxy containers. The second they were clear, Haley and Butch were all over him.
“What are we going to do?” Haley asked.
“What’s the plan, E-Z?” Butch added.
He’d been cautious up until that point, but there was no way he would participate in what was obviously going to be a bloodbath. Without stepping foot inside the cargo unit, he looked back at the soda ash plant. The place was about a half-mile square, with a complicated mixture of large metal buildings, overhead conveyor belts, and storage tanks. It formed an archipelago of human design within the expanse of craggy nothing all around it, save for hundreds of rail cars waiting on the dual line of tracks leading up to the facility. The defense consisted of twenty or thirty shipping containers placed in an uneven semicircle facing the gravel road to the south, like the plant’s shield.
When he turned back toward the green tin can, dust wafted in the distance. The others followed his eyes when he didn’t say anything.
“Oh no. We’re out of time,” Haley said in a quiet voice. She hung close to the outer door of their makeshift fort, as if anxious to get behind cover.
Butch shifted so he was next to Ezra. Together, they watched the smoke plumes grow. They showed up in several places, as if vehicles were on the move across the rocky wasteland in multiple places. “Ezra, you know I’ll fight with you to the end, especially after all we’ve been through, but this doesn’t feel right. Unless they have armor-piercing bullets, they aren’t going to get close to these containers before they’re ripped to shreds. We’re the ones who are going to do the ripping…”
Ezra spoke distantly. “No, we’re not going to do anything of the sort. But we need a plan.” He moved Butch over to Haley, still outside the container. “We have our guns. We’re inside the enemy camp. We’re wearing their uniforms. How the hell can we turn all this to our advantage?”
They stood there for a few seconds before Haley shivered.
“You okay?” he asked.
She motioned toward their empty shipping box. “I was thinking how terrible it’s going to be when our friends walk up to these things and get shot in the face. They’ll be sitting ducks. The only way to shoot back is if they come in from the sides, and the doors are open.”
He scanned the battlefield. Of those he could see at a glance, most of the cargo containers still had their doors open. The twin doors swung outward, providing ballistic protection from incoming rounds except if a truck came at them from the side. The defenders were probably like him and his friends. They would want to keep cool while firing their hot weapons, at least until the trucks got a lot closer.
Ezra saw an advantage. “I have an idea.”
Anticline Ranch, WY
Petteri stayed close to Mr. Aarons as the day wore on. He needed up-to-the-second intel on the attacks,
so he could ensure his plans went according to his wishes, not those of the enemy.
“Sir, there is one gravel path through the mountains to the east. As we suspected, the terrorists are using the route to approach Boulder. If they get there, it will put them within striking distance of this rock.”
He wasn’t overly upset anymore. They’d talked about it earlier, and Mr. Aarons couldn’t have done anything more. They didn’t have the manpower to guard every forest road and pathway along the entire mountain range. While he wished they could have put up a fight in the highlands and delayed the enemy force, Mr. Aarons was able to put a mechanical drone up in the mountains to give them an early warning. His security chief had also explained what he’d done to the town of Boulder, giving him some assurance they weren’t losing too much by allowing the intruders to get close to it.
“We’re still good on the west and the north?” he asked. “No problems at the airfield?”
“Everything is solid in those directions and Tikkanen Airfield is humming along,” Aarons replied. “I’ve been told we currently have more flights moving in and out than Denver International would have had, if they were operating normally.”
“There will be many awards given after this is over,” he said calmly. Switching tracks, he went on. “And any news from your analysts about this, uh, Ezra Anderson? Is he working with his daughter to attack us?”
“We’re still trying to figure that out, sir. I did recently receive this from our research.” He handed over a multi-page document which looked like it was created on an old mechanical typewriter.
“What the hell is this?”
“A police report from Rawlins. After Nerio Torres was attacked and lost her husband, I did a little digging to determine what the police knew about the incident. If you turn to page six, you’ll see a line I’ve highlighted.”
Petteri found the passage and read it aloud. “Subject who drove the truck into the tree seemed fazed by the ordeal and was unable to give us his name. However, the subject spoke broken English with a thick Russian accent and appears to have been involved in more than a simple car accident. Investigators are attempting to locate a Russian interpreter, under the assumption he can better explain himself in his native tongue.”
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 109